aldifan wrote::x Clearer now on source of occasional noise in bottom bracket, after adjusting, fiddling checking derailleurs, pedals, cranks, seats etc I opened the sucker up and found a few bits of gravel in the bottom end. While I need roughage in my diet I do not need it in my bottom end. Unfortunately I can not get the left crank off without a crank removal tool/puller so I may need to go to an LBS to get one and some bottom bearings.

So how much has your $149 bike cost you so far?

+1

I think aldifan is in pursuit of perfecting the Aldi bike - without regard to cost or time.

Cruiserman wrote:...(note windsurf is not the correct term sailboard is)...

I don't generally ride windsurfers much these days. However, I suspect you have also been out of the scene for a while as they are now generally using the term "windsurfer" as generic. As you would know, the only reason the generic "sailboard" was used is because Windsurfer the brand was strongly trying to defend its brand from being used generically. Once Windsurfer finally ran out of money and folded, people went back to using the generic term "windsurfer" again.

Apart from pride, I have paid $99 for the bike$16 for a bunch of cheap chinese lights on ebay used on a few helmets and bikes$10 for the Aldi light$12 for a can of silicone spray lube$11 for a tub of grease.$20 for a luggage rack.$7 for a short roll of reflective tape used on a few helmets and bikesI can not remember what I paid for the compression undies;)

The replacement disc brake and derailleur were free under warranty.

I managed to remove the crank by hitting it with a hammer. After cleaning up the bottom bracket a little, I think the bottom bearings may actually suffice for a little longer. I will give it a propper clean up and repack it in clean grease and see what happens.

Confession and true advise time. If you are ever putting a bike together and you go to put the seat post on and because you put the seat down out of the way on the garden bed, a bit of dirt falls down the post hole, do NOT just turn the bike upside down and give it a shake. There will be a hole in the top of the bottom bracket for the dirt to fall into.

Last edited by aldifan on Sun Oct 24, 2010 10:32 am, edited 1 time in total.

aldifan wrote:If you are ever putting a bike together and you go to put the seat post on and because you put the seat down out of the way on the garden bed, a bit of dirt falls down the post hole, do NOT just turn the bike upside down and give it a shake. There will be a hole in the top of the bottom bracket for the dirt to fall into.

When you put it that way, I'm kinda glad you're learning all this stuff on a BSO and not a Raleigh International.

My Aldi bike has had it's bottom bracket cleaned out, new brakes and a new deraileuer for a little while and is choofing along quite nicely. After a small eternity fiddling, adjusting and fine tuning and tightening things I had not tightened properly the gears are behaving almost predictably. (and no I do not mean predictably bad). The new brake is a bit more agressive than the old one so I have taken to using one or two fingers to do my braking to avoid doing a face plant endo. So far the rear wheel has left the ground unintentionally only once though I have to admit having the ability to do it intentionally is a lot of fun. While I could do this with the old calliper, this one is easier.

I had a couple of minor surprises though 1 - for some reason the rear brakes were sticking a little so I pulled them apart and greased the completely dry and slightly stuck pivots - problem solved.2 - I had a flat tyre - Went through my supply of puncture repair kits - the glue had dried out in almost all of them - the only one that it had not dried out in was a new one I had got with the new bike tool kit I bought off Torpedo7. I was almost reduced to using the glue-less patches that came with the pump I bought about 4 years ago. The other thing that irritated me was that the rim tape which is supposed to protect the tube from the ends of the spokes had pretty much just been thrown on unevenly and only covered about 80% of the spoke ends and guess what - the flat tyre appeared to be caused by one of them wearing through a bit Reseating the rim tape was dead simple so I look forward to no more spoke holes in my inner tube.

Incidentally 146 days of the 12 month warranty to go and don't think I won't use it if I have to.

I have also made a fitted box to go on the luggage rack and a cut up and sewed a cam buckle luggage strap so the buckle does up on top of the box and not on the side. This keeps the loose end of the strap out of the wheel and I am very proud of my little handiwork. The box was a standard plastic roller box where the little wheels were precisely the right width for the luggage rack to fit between so all I had to do was trim a tiny bit of plastic from one end for a close to perfect fit.

Time for another couple of true confessions -

1 - For his birthday recently I bought my son a new Giant Boulder 3 with a small frame. He is just big enough for it. It cost about four times what the Aldi bike cost me and the only fun I have had with it has been adjusting the reach of the brakes and fiddling with the adjustable front suspension. How boring. My son has had lots of fun riding it though.

2 - I am however in a bit of a moral dilemma as my mum and I won a won a Toysisus bike in a meat raffle, ostensibly for another one of my nephews. Honestly we came in bought the tickets in the meat raffle and I bought a bottle of bubbly for fun to "celebrate" the fact that we were going to win my nephew a bicycle and THEN WE WON IT... Somewhat luckily the bike was a girls bike-which you could not tell from the box (honestly it just had Realm - purple 24 inch printed on it) so we took it back to the toysisus store and they gave us a full price refund gift voucher for a hundred and forty bucks How cool is that! After inspecting the Toysisus bikes I am hoping that either my nephew will spend the gift voucher there on something other than a bike or I will be able to throw in some extra money to get something with reasonable discs on it. All of the toysisus bikes seem to have painted steel rims and I have had unhappy experiences with trying to get rim brakes to work on painted steel rims. The only bikes in toysisus with disks seem to have dual suspension too which is a bit of a waste of time for a kid's bike and probably more pogo stick than real suspension. But - it is what the kids really want isn't it. Hopefully in three weeks, when his birthday is, the toys is us people will have put some of their better bikes on special or he will find something else in the store he likes for that amount of money. But that is not the thing that is troubling me the most. Honestly with this critical talk of how bad toysisus bikes are - I think I am turning into a bike snob!!!! Nooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This takes me back to one of the reasons why I started this whole little exercise of buying the cheapest bike from the least bike store I could find. I think this quote kind of sums it up:

So we get the leaders we deserve and we elect, we get the companies and the products that we ask for, right? And we have to ask for different things. â€“ Paul Gilding via Drubiebut really, that's rubbish. We get none of it because the choices are illusory.

And it was only $99 and it had a 60 day no questions asked money back guarantee on top of the 12 month all parts 5 years frame statutory warranties.

aldifan wrote:1 - For his birthday recently I bought my son a new Giant Boulder 3 with a small frame. He is just big enough for it. It cost about four times what the Aldi bike cost me and the only fun I have had with it has been adjusting the reach of the brakes and fiddling with the adjustable front suspension. How boring. My son has had lots of fun riding it though.

So that's the crux. You wanted a challenge, you got it but...

aldifan wrote:...But that is not the thing that is troubling me the most. Honestly with this critical talk of how bad toysisus bikes are - I think I am turning into a bike snob!!!! Nooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

aldifan wrote:Honestly with this critical talk of how bad toysisus bikes are - I think I am turning into a bike snob!!!! Nooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well it was bound to happen to anyone who starts to appreciate quality. What should keep a lid on the cost blowout is remembering the rule of diminishing returns. These days I find I have spent too little and too much depending on how I look at it. I believe you can easily spend too much on MTBs as they get trashed pretty fast. Even though I think you can get better value out of a road bike, I still spent too much on mine.

BotherationWas wondering why it was feeling a little funny in the steering - looked down and saw wheel pointing in slightly wrong direction in comparison to handlebars so I fixed it without looking at it too closely but it was still feeling odd.You may not see this but the tops of the forks have been aligned in this photo with the frame and the handlebars and wheels are pointing in a different direction

The reason for this is that the left side of the fork with the disk brake attached is bent while the right side is not

Left side:

Right side

I think perchance the disk brake has bent the forks.

I have another story to tell about the rear axle and fiddling with the gears but this will do for now.

Personally, I wouldn't risk riding the bike in that condition. I'd be running (not walking, or riding for that matter) back to Aldi and asking the store manager if they're trying to kill me.

Of course, you realise that this makes the naysayers right? The amount of time and effort you've put into making this thing work properly has surely reached the point where you would have been better served by a proper bike by now?

aldifan wrote:Did I mention I have a 5 year statutory warranty and I am not afraid to use it?

And you'll likely spend the next 5 years mucking around going to and fro from Aldi which is taking your riding time away. I've got a 3 year warranty on the Surly frame and fork. I'm unlikely to ever use it.

rkelsen wrote:

aldifan wrote:I think perchance the disk brake has bent the forks.

No kidding.

Personally, I wouldn't risk riding the bike in that condition. I'd be running (not walking, or riding for that matter) back to Aldi and asking the store manager if they're trying to kill me.

Of course, you realise that this makes the naysayers right? The amount of time and effort you've put into making this thing work properly has surely reached the point where you would have been better served by a proper bike by now?

It's satisfying to be right in the end. But I'm glad Aldifan shared his journey with us. This thread spells out the pros and cons pretty clearly.

rkelsen wrote:

Nobody wrote:Aldi. Turning bike riders into bike mechanics...

They're the Ducati of the bicycle world... only nowhere near as cool...